The Backyard Bounty

After a stretch of sunshine, the gardens are stabilizing. The Farmers' Market is filling out: gooseberries, raspberries, fresh garlic, broccoli, zucchinis as well as the usual suspects. Wednesdays in the Creek are becoming a tradition; Sebi and I bring a basket and some cash and stock up as much as we can. The only reason is we go to the store anymore is for nuts, the odd watermelon (we can't help ourselves), milk and cheese. Otherwise, we've stocked up at the food co-op and are trying to eat way more brown rice and beans to match our veggies. This is kind of diet used to be so unappealing to me, but I've come around. There's nothing some spices, chipoltle mayo, soya sauce or an avocado can't spruce up. It's also an exercise of strategy and creative cooking. And of course, sacrifice.

Even with the garden underway, we still can't rely on it. We baby the plants. At dusk we drown slugs, we water squash so carefully to avoid powdery mildew, and we built contraptions for the tomatoes, tobacco and cucumbers to trap heat. We see entire rows of kale and beets devoured overnight by a handful of wood bugs or one tiny slug. We can't rely on our garden yet. It will get better and better with the years, as we build the soil up, save seeds, hone our knowledge. We had a late start with moving mid-April and a wet spring, but there will always be wet springs. Or dry springs and wet summers. Or wet both, or dry both. Right now we're lucky if the garden supplements the farmers' bounty. We get a handful of raspberries from the path, or a few sweet peas or some stalks of kale. Later we will get more,  onions, potatoes, squash and tomatoes, but not now. Right now, we're turning to the native plants that thrive in wet springs, or mild summers, no matter what the West Coast throws at them, they can adapt. We have a huge salal bush in the yard (you know, the dark glossy leaves often found in bouquets) and as the berries ripen you realize you're crazy to spend the day hunched over the raspberry spindles, watering, mulching, slug-picking when you have an abundance of berries right there, thriving. They taste like grapes and wild blueberries, a tad chewy and a bit fuzzy, but you adapt. We find native blackberries buried under morning glory on the edge of the yard, and find they are so good, lemony somehow. So we pick them, freeze them, store them for a big berry mix in the freezer. We go out to the shady forests and pick huckle berries for hours. We spend the afternoon in the cherry tree and eat well for days. Next will be blackberries, that rampant, aggressive, thorny weed that blesses the West Coast all over.  Is it perfect? No. We have to leave a lot for the birds, bears and the plants themselves. We get caught road-side without water and have to eat half our bowl. We sit with children on our laps and try to ignore their little hands shovelling berries into their mouths as we pick. But man, it's satisfying, and on the best of days, even bountiful.